I would like to give thanks to God for books that are no-nonsense, practical, but not legalistic. For too long, I have wearied with books in the ministry that are super-heady, have good theology, but their application and data analysis is lacking. Likewise, I am weary of the books that give technical advice without any spiritual grounding... we are building the church, not a business, and they are different.
That rant being over, I am 200 pages into the 400 page book on Planting Missional Churches. (This book highlights how slowly I read).
Here are my major take home points with my analysis added in...
1 - The protestant church has largely failed to focus in North America on planting churches. We have failed. We like to dream of growing only big churches or revitalizing old churches. The challenge is, large churches serve populations effectively, but are low on percentages of growth, so are established churches. Declining churches generally only turn around 10% of the time... think about folks sent to the doctor and told they have to change the way they live or they will die... 90% will still not diet, exercise, stop smoking or stop drinking. They choose to die rather than change. Churches are no different. A lot of time, we would rather die. Hard truth.
2 - When churches focus on evangelism, we often fail. Ouch. The challenge of evangelism is that we must be strongly biblically founded and contextually relevant. Some folks fail on one extreme by being so biblically founded that they are incapable of reaching unchurched folks where they are. Another way to put it is, this group is more interested in answering the questions they think he unchurched should have, rather than the questions they do have. (I know lots of these folk among us). In my opinion, this group is low on trusting that the Spirit is already at work in the non-believer, and that we have to do the converting, not Christ.
The other extreme are those that are so focused on connecting to the context, that they water down the message to become a mirror to the context. Jesus ate among sinners and prostitutes, but Jesus still had a strong message for those folks. A relevant message. These are the folks that hear the questions that unchurched folks are asking, but only endorse the answers the unchurched already have instead of challenging them to move towards who Jesus is. In my opinion, this group is low on trusting themselves that God can use them to speak a special word to the non-believer.
The third group is those that are neither biblically-based or contextually-relevant, i.e., they are largely who the church ends up being today. These folks are more interested in holding onto their traditions and who they are rather than risking it all to preach the gospel. Double ouch.
The fourth group is those who are biblically-founded and contextually-relevant. They incarnate the gospel to the people they want to reach. They are willing to sacrifice their traditions (even though those traditions worked well to reach them) in order to take the basics of the gospel to meet people in a new place. This is where we have to face the tough questions of "do we need Sunday school?" or "do we need to teach faith?" "what constitutes a worship service?" "Is a sermon the best way to convey Biblical truth in worship?" "Am I willing to give up what makes me comfortable to reach those who do not yet know Christ?" Or "Am I willing to become a Jew to those who are Jews so that I might reach the Jews?" as Paul said...
3 - There are LOTS of ways to plant churches, and the rest of the book is how to do so. The book is full of models, types of new church leaders, how to organize administration and structure, etc., etc. Incredibly important stuff that is really heady and a bit too much for me to process.
4 - And most importantly, you aren't going to get anywhere doing anything if your faith is not in the right place. If you are not on your knees crying out to God, being honest about what ministry you are doing and aren't doing hour by hour and week by week, seeking to be held accountable, and sure above all else that you are called to do this... then you aren't going to succeed. Plating a church is not a business endeavor, it is the work of God. My take-home: when we are faithful, there is nothing that can stop us.
That is what challenges my faith here. Again, I see the gifts of Gethsemane before me. Folks at our church have faith that can move mountains, at times. Just before I became pastor, the prayers of our church (and many other churches) helped us to see a child born waaaaaay too prematurely survive and who is now in elementary school. We also have a heart for evangelism.
Our challenge is that we have some that fall into the too biblically-founded group and others that are too contextually-minded. We also have not answered whether or not it is our calling to seek out and save the lost. If we did know that for sure, if we discerned that for sure, if we knew that down to the fiber of our beings, I know our prayer life would be strong enough and we would sacrifice whatever we needed to in order to obey.
Perhaps, that all just shows that we all need to be praying more. Myself, included.
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